Wednesday, July 9, 2014

World Cup Notes

Part of the appeal of the World Cup is that the entire world,
more or less, gets involved in a single game, a single competition. None of those
Olympic medal counts: Are two bronzes worth more than one silver?

Also, the game is deliciously simple, especially to those of
us who don’t know a center back from a forward, have difficulty distinguishing
a challenge from a tackle, and have no idea when either maneuver might be considered
a foul.

A third merit of the event is that we Americans have no vested
interest in it. Sure, it’s exciting to see our team advance. But we know they
aren’t going to win the thing.

Meanwhile, the aesthetics of the game soak in intuitively,
and we begin to appreciate the flow, the passing, the disruptions, the counter-attacks. And of
course, the scoring.

Germany’s semi-final game with Brazil was a scoring seminar.
As it happened, all the scoring was done by the Germans.

Journalists immediately spilled a lot of ink (but not in a mean
way) contrasting Brazil’s devotion to the game, and its host status, with the Brazilian
team’s semi-final showing, which descended beneath “lackluster” to arrive at “dispirited”
and “amateurish.” The team lost, the nation cried.

Before long, fans will be decrying the fact that in recent
years, Brazil has abandoned its characteristically loose and flowing approach, o jogo bonito, for a more European
approach that has obviously not produced the desired result. Pundits have argued
throughout the early stages of the tourney that Brazil’s team wasn’t that
good, but it would make its way to the championship by an elusive magic
that never fails them on their sacred turf. (Brazil hadn’t lost at home in a Cup competition since 1975.)

What I enjoyed about the game was the sophistication of the German scoring.
Although the announcers made use of such terms a “ruthless” and “machine-like,”
what I noticed about the German attack was how often the players made that
final, extra, pass to a teammate in front of the box, eschewing personal glory
for the sake of a better scoring chance. On one cross, midway through the first half, one
of the Germans feigned a shot but allowed the ball to whiz past to a teammate
who drilled it home. (Or perhaps he just whiffed?)

When Chris Wondolowski blew
his chance to score for the United States, late in the match against Belgium—a score
that would probably have won the game and allowed the team to advance—Clint Dempsey
was standing a few yards away, unmarked, facing a wide-open net. (To be fair,
Belgium missed about twelve scoring chances in that game, too. And if Wondolowski
had bobbled the pass, the cries of “Why didn’t you shoot?” would have been
unceasing.)

The German passing seminar was made possible by the porous and
tentative nature of the Brazilian
defense, no doubt. But the Germans seemed to know exactly how to penetrate it,
without rushing overmuch to get a shot off.

Yet the fact remains that in
many circles German’s team commands admiration...but not affection. Fans get
excited about Mediterranean types of small stature weaving their way through
crowds of defenders (Messi, Iniesta) or midfield masterminds cooly directing
the show (Pirlo, Zidane). The trouble with the Germans is that they all seem
like the same person. When Miroslav Klose scored his 16th career World Cup
goal, eclipsing the record previously held by Ronaldo, the celebrations were
muted in Brazil, naturally enough. But is there anywhere outside Germany where soccer fans have embraced Klose in the same way they embraced Ronaldo, populary dubbed Il Phenomeno?

I really don’t know.

Then again, as you can probably tell, I don’t know much about soccer.

Yet I have been enjoying the German contribution to the current World
Cup, starting with the American coach, Jurgen Klinsmann. Reading about
Klinsmann’s relocation to California, I was reminded of an unread novel that
was smoldering in the basement collection, Martin Walser’s Breakers.
Walser’s novels (Runaway Horse, The Swan Villa, Letter to Lord Listz,
etc.) are all the same, in so far as the narrator is a put-upon German male
yearning for respectability but doubtful about what others may be thinking about
him.

Breakers is no exception, though it’s given an extra twist by the
fact that the narrator is trying to ingratiate himself into a scholarly
California crowd, after receiving a four-month appointment to teach German
conversation at a small Oakland college.

Just this morning, it occurred to me that what I really ought to
be reading is Peter Handke’s Goalie Anxiety at Penalty Kick. I see they
have two copies at the downtown Minneapolis library, and neither is checked
out!

I may head down to pick up a copy this morning. But let me assure you that as I read it, I'll be listening to Brazilian diva Marisa Monte on the stereo.

About Me

The Macaroni blog is dedicated to the subjects that have enlivened the print edition of Macaroni for more than twenty-five years - travel, films, food, ideas, music ... you name it. My name is John Toren. I write the blog. If you're interested in lengthier forays into the same fields track down a copy of my new book,All the Things You Are or my previous book By the Way. For a closer look at the state of Minnesota, check out my travel book, The Seven States of Minnesota.